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How much copywork of the poetry do you have your child do? Some of the poems are pretty long, and I am wondering if they are supposed to copy it completely by the end of the unit or just a portion of it. My DD is 6 and says, "That's too much".....She is doing great with all else. And she just amazes me with the spelling. I will call the words out to her without letting her study them first, and she gets almost all of them correct. I know she is well placed in Beyond, so I was wondering about the copywork. I tend to overkill sometimes, so I didn't want this to be an area I did that! Thanks for all help.

Copywork!!! It is the hardest at our house too & my DD is 7, very well placed in Beyond. At first I must admit I was making my DD copy the whole poem, splitting between the 4 days of course. Sometimes she would dawdle so much it would take her an hour!! It was so frustrating becuz I knew she COULD do it!! Now we set a timer for 15 mins, & if she works diligently the whole time, she's done! Funny thing, she almost always gets done with the same amount of lines anyway. The CM way is shorter amounts done better. So no, they don't have to copy the whole poem!! Good luck!

The guide says to limit Copywork to 5-10 minutes of careful work so I would let that be your guide in how much of the poem is assigned each day rather than focusing on getting it completely copied.

I think we started with 2 lines per day at the beginning of the year. I had wanted to do an entire stanza at a time too, but she just wasn't ready for it at 6-almost-7. So you don't have to finish the poems. Just do the lines you do well. I'd make her copy them again if she started writing sloppy.

Some of the poems are really small so we would throw in other things to copy line writing sentences about what she was doing that day or what we were reading in history. I also used some of the Draw*Write*Now books for extra copy work and the some of the art lessons went well with the history.

I had my DS copy 1 line at the beginning of the year last year and moved into 2 lines by the end of the year (per day). I do NOT have him copy the whole poem, unless it is a short one! I agree that it shouldn't take more than 5-10 min. or they will become tired/frustrated. I do make a copy of each poem, have him cut it out and then glue it back in order (like the guide says to do)...he then illustrates it that day or the next. That way, even though he may have not copied the entire poem, he knows it pretty well!! HTH!!!

Here is what we did with Beyond:

We did just a couple lines of the poem for copy work so we had good quality copywork. Then I photocopied and reduced the poem so it fit into those blank bound hardcover books. I put the poem on the left hand side and then dd illustrated the poem on the right hand side. It took 3 of those blank books to do all 34 poems, and she then custom illustrated the covers of each book. These are her pride and joy. She sits and rereads the poems, tells friends and family about the poems and why she drew the pictures, etc. So that is how I got the best use of the poetry and copywork components.

Thank you all so much!

I will be using Beyond with my 6 yr. old this coming year. I am curious how you keep all the poetry writing together...do you have them put it in a poetry notebook, binder, folder, etc? Do they continue writing on the same page as the previous day or a new sheet each time? Thanks for any suggestions! Jenny

I let her use the same page as the previous day and add to it where she left off. One day they illustrate it, so I have the lined paper with the top unlined for that purpose.

We use the Mead primary journal notebook with the space at the top for a drawing and the dashed primary lines at the bottom. We continue on the same sheet until we are done with that poem or we've run out of room. That way the copywork and the illustration are all on one page.

HTH,
Kathy

I put them in a binder w/ page protectors, so I could keep the hand copied and printed & illustrated copies together.
it's all a matter of preference. The reason we did it that way is because my child has a hard time writing, but is excellent on drawing.
This way was a motivator (child) & organization (me) issue

We have a poetry notebook because in addition to what HOD recommends, I also print out a picture of the author. I tape that picture up on the wall next to a copy of the full poem, and we proceed with the activities. The copywork is done in a regular lined paper notebook which we tear out and add to our poetry notebook at the end of each poem. She likes being able to see who wrote the poem, and we also compare and contrast author pictures as some are actually portrait drawings and others are more modern photographs. If an author repeats, I just pull the same picture out and we file one author together, even if it's done at different times.